Choosing venues for publishing research: a Thai perspective

Choosing venues for publishing research: a Thai

perspective

Richard Watson Todd

Pressure to publish research

• Institutional requirement

• Basis for academic promotion

• High-value publication venue preferred

• High-value publication venue difficult– Low acceptance rates– Need for English– Parochialism

• Think of your last publication prior to this conference– Where was it published?

• International refereed journal in major database• Other international journal• Chapter in internationally published book• International conference proceedings• National journal• National conference proceedings• Other place of publication

• Think of your last publication prior to this conference– Why did you choose to publish it in that

venue?• Prestige and rewards• Readership• Familiarity with venue• Difficulty of publishing elsewhere• Other reason (e.g. combining a conference and a

holiday)

• “The modern conference resembles the pilgrimage of medieval Christendom in that it allows the participants to indulge themselves in all the pleasures and diversions of travel while apparently bent on self-improvement”

• David Lodge in Small World

• For people presenting in this conference– Did you conduct research specifically for this

conference?– OR– Did you use some existing research?

This study

• How do applied linguistics academics at KMUTT choose the venue for publishing their research?

• Interviews– Individual with 4 academics– Asked for reasons for choosing venue for

specific publications– Identify research publication style

Applied linguistics research in Thailand

• Ranked 47th for language and linguistics research

• Produces 0.03% of world research output

• Thai-Journal Citation Index for national journals– Relevant to applied linguistics, 33 journals– 13 English only, 10 Thai only, 10 either

KMUTT SoLA research publications 2001-2013

Type of publication No.

International conference proceedings 158

National journal 98

National conference proceedings 58

International journal not in database 33

International journal in database 16

Chapter in international book 12

Chapter in other book 8

Other venue 6

KMUTT SoLA research publications 2001-2013

Type of publication No.

International conference proceedings 158

National journal 98

National conference proceedings 58

International journal not in database 33

International journal in database 16

Chapter in international book 12

Chapter in other book 8

Other venue 6

The subjects’ recent publications

Subject Major inter. journal

Other inter. journal

Inter. conference

National journal

National conference

Other

A 2 3 2

B 1 6 2 2

C 1 1 3

D 3 2 2

Subject A: The storer

• R: So why did you choose that conference? Did you want to go to Maha Sarakham or did you think the conference title

• A: The topic of the conference, it match. Sometimes when I - I have research, I didn’t do anything. I finish it and keep it for a while and then when I got the news that, ah!, here’s a conference and the title match so I apply

• R: So generally you’re constantly doing pieces of research and you just keep them until you find an appropriate place to publish them

• A: Yes. It’s like that, or to present them

Subject B: The strategist

Subject B: The strategist

• R: Before you do the research, do you have a clear place of publication that you’re aiming for?

• B: No, it starts from my interest• R: For all of these?• B: Uh, mostly for the journals I have, I started from my

interest and I outline some ideas and then I look for the, uh, where to publish, but for the conference it start from the announcements and then I look at the themes and see, OK, what kind of research that I can do for the presentation

• R: So, what you’re saying is that for the conference in effect the fact that it’s a conference is dictating what research you do

• B: Yes

Subject C: The upgrader

• R: So why do you think it’s important to go for an international journal?

• C: I think it’s about the standard, we should improve and we will see about I mean the difficulties or the regulations or the different kinds of standard for the peer reviewing process to approve or I mean to give the different views of how can I improve my research

Subject D: The follower• D: He told me about the conference and I just went there,

submitted a paper and got accepted, and he took me there, just that, I don’t know anything about it at all

• R: So it wasn’t really your choice, it was his choice• D: Yes• D: [later in the interview] Actually, X [a colleague] she told me

that let’s go to Spain (laughs), no, no, no, we should develop ourselves by doing some research, and that is the Spain research, and she told me about the title, the theme of the conference

• R: [later in the interview] So why did you choose this conference?

• D: Y [a colleague] told me (laughs) he already submitted a paper and asked me to submit a paper. OK, I have this one, I will submit it. Just that. No choice, no, not, it’s not my own decision

Reasons for choosing international journal

• B: For this journal, my friends or my colleagues are saying I shouldn’t have sent, I should not submit my research to this journal because the acceptance rate is very low, but I think it’s, I will be, I will feel very good and proud of myself if I can get publication here, and it was successful

• A: She [the journal editor] visit here, we had lunch together, and I told her that I have a kind of article like this, and she said, ah!, we are preparing a new special issue about that, so she asked me to send and lots and lots of revisions after that. So happy she accepted.

Reasons for choosing international conference

• C: If I went to Dubai, Laos and last year I went to Australia, I try to change the place, I mean the country, of the conference that I will attend. First of all, I think about the theme first, and then I will try to, well, let’s say, tourist purposes, but actually I want to explore life, to see way of life, something like that, because I have not much chance to go abroad, right?, so this is a good opportunity for me to get around, to learn more

Reasons for choosing national journal

• High acceptance rates

• Quick reviewer turnaround times

Why publish in English, not Thai?

• C: Why? Because I think I’m an English teacher and my specialty is to use English, and one way I think writing research in Thai is more difficult than writing research in English because of the terms, something like that, writing style as well. I think, well, another thing is because we are an English teacher, we should do research in English

Why publish in English, not Thai?

• D: I myself believe that, if I write it in Thai, it will not convey a clear concept or the clear framework I really use because all the frameworks belong to the foreign ones, the post-modern theories, the thinking theories. Even our own data is English, it is impossible to write it in Thai, for me it is impossible and, if I write it in Thai, I think it’s not going to be published because it’s not interesting

Why publish in English, not Thai?

• R: So you think that even for a journal like a national journal which accepts papers in both Thai and English, you think that if you write in English, it has a higher chance of being accepted?

• D: For sure. Someone from X University told me that we desperately need the English paper, the paper in English to be published. I believe that maybe people who write it in Thai may have the equal, the same quality as my paper, but they will choose me because of English

Key findings

• Individual research publication style more important than venue type or institutional pressure in deciding where to publish

• Journal or conference is main decision, not international or local

• Choices are often serendipitous, not rational

• English is the only real choice for language of publication

Why publish research?

• 30 articles in this study– Only one in Scopus– 14 in Google Scholar– 3 received citations

• Of all SoLA publications between 2009 and 2013, only 44% are in Google Scholar

• Dry holes of research

Making research accessible

• Of the 4 researchers, the Storer has the highest proportion of publications accessible through Google Scholar

• For venues, from highest to lowest proportions in Google Scholar:– International journal (75%)– International conference (54%)– National journal (33%)– National conference (0%)

Making research accessible

• Reasons for conducting and publishing research– Fulfill job requirements: Publish anywhere?– For your research to influence others: International

journals– To build networks: International conferences?– For personal development: Not necessary to publish?

• Institutional pressure to publish promotes conducting research to influence others, and ignores other reasons for doing research